Prologue (2)

Just as Ms. Roemmele finished her ominous warning, the man clicked his fingers, and the world around them slowed down to a standstill. The birds froze mid-flight, and the leaves falling from the trees stilled in mid-air. Time itself crawled to a stop, holding everyone but the two mysterious entities completely frozen. The two entities made their way over to the boy frozen beside his teacher. The man looked him over curiously.

"He doesn't look as bad as we had thought he would," he commented. The woman flicked her hand. Various parts of the boy's body lit up yellow in their vision.

"Dozens of broken bones, damaged nerves, excessive blunt force trauma, lack of appropriate nutrition...looks can be deceiving"

"Indeed" the man muttered, retracting his previous statement. He gave another flick and the yellow light vanished, replaced by a pulsating blue aura around the boy's head. The man closed his eyes as he cocked his head to the right as if listening to what the pulsating light had to say to him, before with a wave of his hand, he made the light disappear.

"I sensed various issues in the mental structure in his mind...he's incredibly close to breaking," the man said quietly.

"He has the enormous weight of his destiny to uphold. And those broken shoulders will not be able to carry them." the woman stated with absolute certainty.

"Then fix them," the man said fiercely, "Fix him."

"We are not to interfere in the activities of wizardkind anymore," the woman warned, "You know the rules."

"We made the rules," the man insisted.

"Which is why we cannot break them! The others will not take well to hypocrisy."

"The others will not take well to utter and complete annihilation either," the man angrily snapped, "It's either this or doing nothing"

The woman seemed to have wanted to debate the point even more but held herself. Instead, she said, "We will have to fix his mind. His mind is his greatest tool, but its broken, and on the brink of falling off the edge."

"His guardians fear him. And that mindless fear of those who they believe to be better than them gives rise to hatred. Blinded by that hatred, they do this to him. Coupled with what happened to him on the night he was orphaned...well...I'm not surprised that his mind is in the condition that it is." noted the man somberly.

"We will need something to hold it together and keep it from breaking"

"Easily done," the man snapped his fingers, and Harry's head was enveloped in a luminescent red membrane, which then sunk into his brain.

"You should not have done that," the woman admonished disapprovingly, "That ability is dangerous. Even we won't be able to control his mind now and someone with magic that powerful being out of our control will not sit well with the others"

"The boy needed it. It'll keep the dangerous memories away and hold his psyche together. The others won't know about this. And there are ways to control a man other than to control his mind"

"Oh really? So enlighten me," the woman snapped, waving her hand, trying to undo whatever the man had done, and failing.

"Addiction."

The woman froze, "Keep talking."

"We give the boy power, and then we get him addicted to that power. So deeply and inherently addicted that he would be willing to give his own life to not lose his power. That, not some primitive carrot and stick method that the others will suggest is what will ensure his loyalty."

"So your solution to keeping a powerful being under control is to...give it more power? Hand him an even more powerful weapon? Genius really." the woman mocked.

"No. Not a weapon." said the man, "Something more. Something that will be all-consuming. Something that will alter his very perception of the reality around him."

"So what you are thinking of..."

"Indeed." the man answered the unasked question, before raising his hand, which was now holding a glowing orb fully composed of a gently pulsating fractal light.

The woman hesitated for a second before she nodded, and the orb of light lifted from the man's hand, just as invisible to the world around it as the entities that summoned it, spinning and bathing its surroundings in a gentle rhythmic purple as it slowly descended down into Harry, permanently altering his true nature beyond anything that mankind or wizardkind could ever even comprehend.

Within the blink of an eye, the two entities vanished from their spots, and time resumed its normal flow.

Harry's head suddenly spiked with a sudden burst of unimaginable pain, and his knees almost buckled under him. But before he could even get his hand up to his head, the pain disappeared just as instantaneously as it had come.

Frowning, Harry massaged his head, wondering what in the world that pain was.

"Is there anything wrong Mr. Potter?" Ms. Roemmele asked, noticing his frown.

"Erm...No, ma'am. I'm fine," he replied.

And so they went off to Number 4, where Ms. Roemmele gave Harry a generic speech about bullying and adults and responsibility that went into Harry's one ear and flew right out of the other before she turned around and walked off to who knows where. After staring at his teacher's steadily disappearing back for a few more seconds, Harry had headed into Number 4 to no doubt face his Aunt's reprimands, completely oblivious to what he had become.